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2014 Nissan Rogue

When I first started in this whole automotive journalism biz, I held a sort of hodgepodge receptionist/gopher/production assistant role, and each morning as the staff filed in, I'd ask them how they liked whatever car they were assigned to drive the previous night. Most of my colleagues would regale me with anecdotes about how good or bad a vehicle was, but one co-worker, every single morning, would answer my query with the exact same phrase: "It was fine."
I always assumed this was just a brush-off, an "ask me again after I've had a cup of coffee" sort of response. But then I found myself in a similar moment of brevity following the launch of the 2014 Nissan Rogue earlier this week. After returning home, a friend asked me what I thought of the new Rogue, and I replied, word for word, "It was fine."
And, well, it was. Nothing worth wasting exclamation points over, good or bad. Aside from something like the interesting-to-drive Mazda CX-5 or funky-looking Jeep Cherokee, nothing in this class really tries to set the world on fire. And that, right there, is fine. Nissan doesn't need to do anything crazy with its second-generation Rogue. It just needs to offer a well-equipped crossover that's handsome, functional, efficient and priced right - sticking to the same formula that made the first-generation model so successful while offering the latest crop of creature comforts in a more modern package.

Ghosn predicts autonomous cars on the roads by 2018, if laws allow

Things appear to be going well inside Nissan's autonomous vehicle development program. Until now, the automaker believed that self-driving cars would be ready for major markets like the US by 2020. However, Renault-Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn is now speeding up that prediction to 2018 in some places, assuming that local laws are ready to accept the computer-controlled vehicles.
"The problem isn't technology, it's legislation, and the whole question of responsibility that goes with these cars moving around," said Ghosn in a speech in France recorded by Reuters. He predicted that the first sales could begin in France, Japan and the US by 2018 and expand elsewhere in 2020.
The alliance has been among the forefront of automakers working on self-driving cars. Nissan has an autonomous Leaf (pictured above) test car that is licensed to drive on Japanese roads. Renault showed off an version of its Zoe EV earlier this year called the Next Two, that could pilot itself at speeds up to 18 miles per hour, and that the company predicted would be ready by 2020.

Panoz mulls suing Nissan for ZEOD RC's Deltawing likeness

Imitation might be the sincerest form of flattery, but in racing, where something as simple as a car's shape can lead to a competitive advantage, imitation can be a big no-no. That reality is being played out right now, with the DeltaWing prototype and the Nissan ZEOD RC. The two cars, as you can see from the images above, bear a striking resemblance to each other. They're so similar, in fact, that Dr. Don Panoz, one of the big names behind the DeltaWing program, is assigning some legal eagles to investigate any patent infringement.
The similarity shouldn't be a shock, though. Both cars are penned by Ben Bowlby, and the DeltaWing - which will be arriving as a coupe in the very near future - had Nissan branding and power for a not-insignificant amount of time. But for Panoz, the ZEOD RC's resemblance is just a bit too much, as he told Autoweek, "It's been interesting to watch people from Nissan trying to dodge the question, but the fact is that in their own press release they admit that the configuration of the ZEOD is the same as the DeltaWing. And we do have patents, in fact another one was just issued last week. We are in discussions with our legal advisors and we'll see what happens."
Frankly, it's not difficult to see what Panoz means. The general shape of the ZEOD RC, with its wide rear track and narrow front track arrangement - not to mention the headlights mounted over the rear wheel arches and any arrangements not visible under the body - are so reminiscent of the DeltaWing that differences like the shape of its closed cockpit and more upright front end might not prove different enough to avert Panoz's legal action. We'll stay with this one and let you know as more becomes available.